Live from Hobart

Discuss the Questions

Here are the questions our panel faced this week. Tell us what your answer would be or what you think our panellists need to say.

MONA

EBONY ALTIMIRA asked: MONA has been described as one of the wonders of the world and draw cards for Tasmania, is it too out there for Tasmania or even Australia to embrace a museum with a wall of vaginas and a human digestive pooing machine?What do you think?

MONA

EMILY WILLS asked: Is MONA truly a representation of Tasmaniaís future in art & philanthropy? Or is it really only the representation of one person with great wealth and a small niche group of followers that are involved with something that is in no way representative of the greater Tasmanian population and its cultural inclinations?What do you think?

MONA AND GAMBLING

ROBYN STOREY asked: Our most successful entrepreneur in Tasmania at this minute is David Walsh, creator of MONA and other ventures, and employer of approximately 400 Tasmanians (including Brian Ritchie). It is no secret that Mr Walsh made and continues to make his fortune from gambling, initially at this venue (where incidentally he is banned).So would you agree that gambling has and continues to have a significant role in the economy of Tasmania, not only for Mr Walsh but also as a lazy revenue raiser for the State Government? What do you think?

JULIA'S BACKSIDE

RANDY ROSE asked: 'Little Johnny' referred to Prime Minister Howard's diminutive stature and it's OK to comment continually about Tony Abbott in his 'budgie smugglers' but not alright to mention Julia's choice of clothing nor her large 'derriere', except if it's from Germaine, then it is OK. Is a double standard operating here?What do you think?

WILKIE BROKEN PROMISES

PETER STONE asked: Hindsight is a wonderful thing, given the broken promise by Julia Gillard on Pokie reform, if we were able to wind back the clock, knowing now what has occurred, would you have supported the Labor party to form government?What do you think?

WILKIE - NO CONFIDENCE?

MICHAEL MCKENNA asked: Andrew Wilkie, you are on record as believing the parliament should run its full term but that you would support motions of no confidence in the event of serious misconduct. Given that the Prime Minister has been found to have repeatedly lied to the Australian people and didn't honour her arrangements with you why haven't you initiated a motion of no confidence in the government of Prime Minister Gillard? What do you think?

FORESTRY

GAIL SORBIAN asked: What in your opinion will happen to the Forest Industry in Tasmania if the campaign by radical groups successfully convince overseas markets not to purchase wood products from here. There is high demand for wood products in Australia and people will be forced to obtain these from other countries with poor or no forest management. What plans would you like to implement to create a balanced industry?What do you think?

FORESTS

IRENA LUCKUS asked: A willingness to dismiss reports based on Scientific Investigation led me to think that we are entering a New Dark Age. Self-interested groups like Forestry Tasmania, deny they have plundered our rich old growth forests at unsustainable levels. Politicians with their Party-Political-Ego-Babble, their stunts, spins and three-word slogans promote this banality and they are supported by a "Vacancy" in our media.When will Forestry Tasmania and our politicians "Cut the Crap?" And when will the Media do the same?What do you think?

POLITICIANS - NO EXPERIENCE

STEPHEN WILKKINSON asked: I am a surgeon. Daily many people entrust me with their lives, mostly successfully. To qualify for this trust took 15 years of training and sacrifice, and the gathering of a broad life experience where the rubber hits the road. Yet to become a politician, who can make decisions affecting thousands of lives, requires no qualifications at all. Many are lawyers with narrow life experience, or career politicians who have never had much real life responsibility. Should Australia require a minimum level of training and skills to be demonstrated before you can enter politics.What do you think?

Thank you. Q&A is live from 9.35 Eastern Time. Itís simulcast on ABC News 24 and News Radio. Go to our website to send a question or join the Twitter conversation using the hash tag that just appeared on your screen.

Well, here in Hobart tonight, professional gambler David Walsh has spent more than $200 million on MONA, a world class museum of confronting art that employs 170 people and attracts international visitors. Our first question tonight comes from Ebony Altimira.

MONA

EBONY ALTIMIRA: Mona has been described as one of the wonders of the worlds and drawcards for Tasmania. Is it too out there for Tasmania or even Australia to embrace a museum with a wall of vaginas and a human digestive pooing machine?

TONY JONES: Eric Abetz, letís start with you because I think youíve recently - youíre in the Senate so youíll know all about pooing machines.

ERIC ABETZ: Look MONA is one of those places that you either like or donít like or for most people that Iíve spoken to and my own personal experience has been that there are aspects that you like and other aspects that you donít like and one of the great things that theyíve got on that little gadget they give you, you can either press love or hate and so you can make your feeling known about a particular art object and if I might say the water fountain I thought was just fantastic that makes the words, the teak - the carved teak cement mixer - concrete mixer was something but I must say there were other aspects of it that did not...

TONY JONES: Well, the questioner asked about the wall of vaginas. Thatís not there anymore. Did you happen to catch it before that went?

ERIC ABETZ: No, I only went there, in fact, in anticipation of such a question, on Saturday.

TONY JONES: Brian Ritchie?

BRIAN RITCHIE: Itís true, he was there on Saturday.

ERIC ABETZ: Yeah, I was.

BRIAN RITCHIE: I saw him.

NATASHA CICA: So you didnít get a private viewing of the vaginas?

ERIC ABETZ: No. No.

NATASHA CICA: Oh.

BRIAN RITCHIE: So Bit.Fall is our most popular work. One of the statistics there, 170 people employed the museum itís actually 220 people, 170 full-time equivalents, so itís quite big operation for Hobart and for Tasmania in general, even in terms of economic value but, of course, the main thing we care about is the art and itís not - and itís a very good question that you had. Itís not too much for Tasmania because even David Walsh himself was a bit worried - not worried but the thought it would be much more contentious than it has been and, in fact, itís been embraced and basically people identify with it as their museum so itís frequently said, ďI didnít like everything that was there but Iím really glad it exists.Ē

TONY JONES: Brian, itís a phenomenal example of philanthropy. Can one man change a culture, which is what he seems to be trying to do?

BRIAN RITCHIE: Well, heís got quite a lot of ambitions for the state and for the arts and for music as well and thatís what MONA FOMA is about. Heís leading up a team of people who - heís a very good leader because he chooses people based on his instincts, I suppose, because he frequently has people like me doing things that theyíre not supposed to do. Iím a performer. Iím not supposed to be running a festival but...

HER HONOUR: Heís apparently very good at taking a punt on people.

BRIAN RITCHIE: Yeah, he lets people do their thing. He gives a lot of freedom and people want to create something great for David but also for the general public and an experience for them.

TONY JONES: Okay, weíve got another question on this subject. It comes from Emily Wills.

MONA

EMILY WILLS: Is MONA truly a representation of Tasmaniaís future in art and philanthropy or is it really only a representation of one person with great wealth and a small niche group of followers that are involved with something that is no way representative of the greater Tasmania population and its cultural incriminations?

TONY JONES: Natasha?

NATASHA CICA: Well, I hope it is part of our future. I hope that partly what it is is part of a tipping point for Tasmania where we begin to imagine all kinds of futures that have been quite difficult for us to grasp until now. I mean Iím part of the generation that grew up in this place in the 1980s and almost to a man and a woman my friends from school left because there was a recession and there were no jobs. Most of us have stayed away. Some of us have come back. I look now at the young people I teach, many of the young people in this wonderful audience, and I donít - despite what the economy - economic numbers are telling us, what the spreadsheets are telling us, I donít get that same sense of pessimism or lack of a sense of possibility amongst Tasmanians and I think that MONA is part of what a great friend of mine calls the arrival of a critical intensity in Tasmania where the creative cultural industries have a legitimate place in our conversations, not just about aesthetic activity or cultural activity but also about social and economic stability and sustainability and that is what the risk-taking and bigness of heart of David Walsh has brought to all of us so thank you, David.

TONY JONES: Letís go to - letís hear from Terry Edwards on this. I think you recently visited yourself. I mean did you feel when you visited this place that ordinary Tasmanians are somehow excluded from it?

TERRY EDWARDS: No, not at all and it wasnít recently that I visited. I went some time ago. It was one of those phenomena I think as a Tasmania you go and view the exhibits that are there. Certainly there are components of it that are confronting, as Ebony said in her first question, and I think Emilyís question equally is quite valid. Does it represent the Tasmanian psyche? No, possible not but does it represent some of the Tasmanian psyche? Yes, it definitely does. It does - it does put forward a side for Tasmanians to try and aspire to in the creative side of society and thatís a very important component. Now, there are parts of MONA that I wouldnít particularly bust my gut to go back and visit again but equally there were some parts that I found quite fascinating and I really did enjoy the experience and I think itís important for Tasmania to have a facility like MONA and I congratulate David and Brian in bringing something like that to Hobart because it is a new string to our bow as a state and I think thatís really important. We need diversification in our approach and this is a great form of diversity.

TONY JONES: Julie Collins?

JULIE COLLINS: I agree with some of what Terry said. Certainly I think that MONA and its creative cultures...

TONY JONES: He jumped when you said that.

TERRY EDWARDS: Donít frighten me.

TONY JONES: He almost leapt out of his chair.

JULIE COLLINS: Iím sure thereís plenty we can agree on, Terry. Certainly I think the creative culture in Tasmania has been there for a long time and itís great to see that this museum is unique, not just to Tasmania but to Australia, and I think that Emilyís question about whether or not itís representative of the broader Tasmanian community - I think that it is representative of parts of the Tasmania community but what it shows, not just Tasmanians but also those mainlanders that want to come here or people from overseas, that we do have a diverse group of people here in Tasmania that we can do things like this, that we can actually have entrepreneurs who can invest in our state and it also is obviously about jobs for Tasmanians, you know, and I applaud any investment in Tasmania that brings jobs for Tasmanians.

TONY JONES: Andrew Wilkie?

ANDREW WILKIE: I think MONA points to a very, very bright future for this state. You know, I moved down here as recently as 2005 because I fell in love with Tasmania years and years ago. Like, I think, many people in the audience, we fell in love with this place and we decided to move here because we have an optimism about this state and weíre probably feeling a little bit anxious at the moment that thereís so much pessimism about Tasmania right now and what the future holds to us but if we do things like MONA in the future, we will have a very bright future. If Tasmania focuses on what weíre good at - you know we are good at art. We are good at higher education. Weíre good at science. We have a remarkable number of Antarctic and southern ocean scientists here. Weíre good at high technology, high speed catamarans. We make the best catamarans in the world here. You know if we focus on these sorts of things and if the state government and the Federal Government get the settings right to provide - get the settings right, for example by fixing the Bass Strait Freight Equalisation Scheme so that Bass Strait genuinely is - I mean the whole idea - the whole idea of the Bass Straight Freight Equalisation Scheme is to turn Bass Strait into a highway and accord it the same priority as the Hume Highway and the Pacific Highway and the Princes Highway and all those other highways up there but itís not like that at this stage. You know, if you are a Tasmanian manufacturer or primary producer and you are shipping goods through Melbourne for eventual export, you get no freight subsidy. A friend of mine...

TONY JONES: We should recall the fact we were talking about a museum here but you can finish your point. You can finish your point.

ANDREW WILKIE: Well, I think Iíve made my point.

TONY JONES: I think so too. So letís go to our next question, which is still on the museum. The next question comes from Robyn Storey.

MONA AND GAMBLING

ROBYN STOREY: Mr Wilkie, itís fabulous to hear you say such wonderful things about David Walsh, our entrepreneur because itís no secret that Mr Walsh made his fortune and continues to make his fortune from gambling. Initially at this venue where, incidentally, heís now banned. So would you agree that gambling has and continues to have a significant role in the economy of Tasmania, not only for Mr Walsh but also as a lazy revenue earner for the Tasmanian government?

TONY JONES: Andrew Wilkie, back to you. By the way, I think he was banned from gambling here because heís so good at it.

ANDREW WILKIE: I think so. I think it was some sort of bad joke inviting me here to Tasmaniaís largest poker machine venue but I havenít been banned yet. Look, David Walsh truly is a Tasmanian treasure and what David has done and is doing for Tasmania is to be applauded and there is no ill-feeling towards me for David Walsh. At the end of the day people like that, you know, they gamble and, in fact, you know, he wins and good luck to him. But I tell you what, he doesnít play poker machines, you know, because poker machines in Australia, you now, $12,000 million is lost in Australian every year on poker machines and about $5000 million dollars of that is lost by problem gamblers. Four out of five problem gamblers are problem gamblers with poker machines. Thatís why we have to do something about poker machine problem gambling. Thatís why I was horrified when the Prime Minister tore up her agreement with me.

TONY JONES: Okay, weíre going to come to that in a moment. We really are, I promise you. Letís hear from Brian Ritchie on this question about where the money came from to fund this amazing museum. I suppose we could recall that the Nobel Prize is actually funded from a munitions factory.

BRIAN RITCHIE: Well, David is a very intelligent person who has developed systems and is able to gamble with security that he is not going to lose, so heís different than some of these problem - people who have a gambling problem, as Andrew mentioned and what heís doing with that money, itís pretty amazing because he could be buying helicopters for himself or big fancy jewellery or whatever put heís putting it back into the public...

TONY JONES: It does separate him out from a lot of very reach people that heís done something like this. Iím struggling to find a similar example in Australia.

BRIAN RITCHIE: It doesnít happen very often in the States and it happens much less here in Australia. The tendency is to rely upon the government to fund these kinds of projects. Heís doing it because he loves - he loves the art and he loves to give it to the people so heís doing it for himself but it certainly has benefited everybody around here.

TONY JONES: Eric Abetz?

ERIC ABETZ: I do have an issue because there is no doubt David Walsh has made huge winnings. Tasmania is the beneficiary but those huge winnings were as a result of other peopleís huge losses and I just cannot get my head around the distinction between huge losses on poker machines and huge losses on other forms of gambling. To try to demonise one and not the others is, to me, to try to split something which cannot be split.

TONY JONES: In this case, though, the huge losses are incurred by casinos and others - bookmakers for example. Itís sort of redistribution of income, isnít it?

ERIC ABETZ: No, because - well, of course all gambling is. It is not the bookmakers as such. It is the people that put their money in with the bookmakers as well, Tony, that actually lose the money and it just passes through from one punter, through the bookmaker, to David Walsh. So good luck to him. And good luck to him.

TONY JONES: So letís get this straight. Youíre against using gambling revenue for taxation purposes for example?

ERIC ABETZ: No. No. No. I didnít say that. No. No. No. I didnít say anything of the sort. What I am saying is - what I am saying and very clearly that you cannot in all honesty seek to differentiate between peopleís big losses on poker machines and big losses through other forms of gambling.

NATASHA CICA: Well, I think you can. I mean some of my best friends are gamblers, Iíll come straight up and say, and there is a difference between pulling a thing on a poker machine and playing a game of poker. One is asocial, anti-social, inward looking, does not involve you connecting with other people. The other can be the creation of a social space. Now, Iím not saying itís as simple as that but I remember when this building opened and when Wrest Point Casino was the sexiest, most cosmopolitan space in town and much as with MONA, people flew into Hobart from other countries, other states and there was a buzz about this building and that was all around gambling so I think there are degrees of problematic behaviour and social cost associated with different types of gambling so with all respect I disagree.

TONY JONES: Okay, weíre going to come back to - thank you. Weíre going to come back to the gambling question. In fact, weíve got some people with their hands up there. Weíll try and get a microphone to you in a moment. First of all weíre going to go to another question. Youíre watching Q&A where over the next few weeks weíll be experimenting with online voting live on Q&A. Take your phone or device to the web address on the screen and you can register to take part in that. Our next question tonight comes from Randy Rose.

JULIA'S BACKSIDE

RANDY ROSE: Thank you, Tony. To the panel: why is it all right to refer to a previous Prime Minister as Little Johnny and to call somebody a mad monk and frequently talk about those bloody budgie smugglers but not all right to talk about Juliaís jacket or her gigantic - can I say bum on the ABC?

TONY JONES: Actually, I think that Germaine Greer has gazumped you there so if you just sort of finish off your question, weíll come to the answers.

RANDY ROSE: Is there a double standard here?

TONY JONES: Okay. Julie Collins?

JULIE COLLINS: I think that the public really is genuinely not very comfortable with some of the more personal comments about peopleís appearance. Itís not something that Iíve ever done in a public arena. I wouldnít like to see it become a habit. Thereís no doubt in the past former Prime Ministers have had comment made about, as you say, other things but I donít think that it is appropriate. I think we should be focussing on what they do as leaders of the country and I think that thatís what we should be talking about, not their clothes they wear or anything else about their physical appearance.

TONY JONES: Terry Edwards?

TERRY EDWARDS: Well, I think...

TONY JONES: The question really was about double standards, about is it okay to make comments about Johnny Howard and not about other Prime Ministers?

TERRY EDWARDS: I guess my personal view is, no, itís not and it shouldnít happen to politicians from either side of the political divide. I donít think itís fair to ridicule people because of their appearance, regardless of what the facet of their appearance is that youíre talking about and, you know, I run the risk of agreeing with Julie twice in a row. Iíll probably never live that down. The other thing I wanted to say about the comments about Juliaís jackets and the size of her posterior is that I got a very clear warning from my wife before I came on tonight that thatís just a no-go zone. You just do not talk about that stuff and I believe that personally anyway. You donít ridicule people for their physical performance. Now, I donít agree with the Little Johnny claim. I donít like the mad monk comment. I donít like the constant comments about budgie smugglers. I was a surf lifesaver myself until recently so I too wore budgie smugglers. Now, thereís a vision you donít want.

TONY JONES: Well, the analogy with peopleís behinds, I suppose, would be if someone started talking about the size of the budgie.

TERRY EDWARDS: Yeah, thatís a real worry and thatís probably the reason why I particularly donít want to go there. I just think itís an area we should leave alone.

JULIE COLLINS: I agree.

TONY JONES: Eric Abetz?

ERIC ABETZ: Look, Iím not interested in peopleís proboscis or posterior, Iím interested in their policies and I think at the end of the day that is what everybody is interested in ultimately but there is a double standard and itís quite clear that what Germaine Greer and the punter said was okay but when Tony Abbott happened to agree, for which heís apologised...

TONY JONES: No, he didnít apologise. He expressed regret.

ERIC ABETZ: He was (indistinct).

MULTIPLE SPEAKERS TALK AT ONCE

TONY JONES: Thereís an old formulation. You probably remember it.

ERIC ABETZ: I donít know what youíre getting at there, Tony, other than to say that the double standard is there, I think, for all to see.

TONY JONES: Natasha Cica. Sorry, go. Please go.

ANDREW WILKIE: Look, I think, you know, weíre all - we politicians are pretty thick-skinned and, you know, we cop a bit of flack and thatís fair enough but I do think that with the Prime Minister sheís copping more flack than is normal and I think the issue of her gender is central to that flack. You know itís interesting that when she became Prime Minister or when she went to her first election - her election, I think people assumed that, you know, gender would be a positive for her and maybe it was a positive for her but for some bizarre reason itís not turned around and itís a negative and thatís wrong.

ERIC ABETZ: No, itís not her gender, itís her policies, Andrew. Itís her policies, not her gender.

ANDREW WILKIE: No, look, Eric, Iím not for a moment saying that there arenít a lot of Australians, myself included, who have serious concerns with some of her policies but at the moment thereís something else going on with Julia Gillard and it is heavily gender related and I think that reflects very poorly on those members of the community who are responding that way.

ERIC ABETZ: I think itís the broken carbon tax promise.

TONY JONES: Weíll come to the carbon tax. Natasha, what do you think about that notion?

NATASHA CICA: Well, I think this whole debate about what jacket you wear, what colour lipstick you wear, what kind of coloured budgie smugglers you wear is symptomatic of a larger problem that Lindsay Tanner identified very eloquently, in the sense the public - our players in public life are forced to play a game thatís increasingly like a circus and itís led to a very serious degradation in the trust that the public has, not just in individuals elected to public office but the institutions, whose levers of power they wield and I think we have a very serious problem and also a responsibility to step back from this and every minute weíre spending on this panel talking about Julia's outfit, so on and so on, is a minute that we could be spending about talking about where Tasmania is heading.

TONY JONES: Except it gave you an opportunity to make this bigger point but however...

NATASHA CICA: But itís a really bit point. Itís an important point.

TONY JONES: Yeah.

NATASHA CICA: And we are playing in fire in a sense with it. Iím really concerned about the rise of what some people call ant politics, this territory we enter into where we don't talk about real issues anymore, we don't take people in public life as seriously as they actually deserve to be taken on the whole, because most people, in my experience, who do go through the horror shop of pre-selection, election and that kind of 24/7 performance and scrutiny, most of those people are decent people. I have worked for them on both sides of politics. We need to be encouraging more people like that and need to be encouraging the young people in the studio audience, but also across Australia, to be stepping up for public life, not pushing them away because they might have the wrong kind of, as I said, hairstyle, the wrong kind of body shape or the wrong - ore are not vanilla enough, not safe enough public persona or presentation. They may have done things in their past that they may not want to see splattered across the front page of the nearest tabloid newspaper.

TONY JONES: Now, letís hear from Brian. Is this a particularly Australian thing? I mean youíve obviously lived in a number of countries but do you find this unusual?

BRIAN RITCHIE: What, the trivialisation of female politicians?

TONY JONES: Yeah.

BRIAN RITCHIE: Or is this a double standard?

TONY JONES: Mm.

BRIAN RITCHIE: No, it's not a double standard. Iíd rather see Julia Gillard with any clothes on than Tony Abbott with hardly any clothes on. But this wasn't in my bio, but I was the first boy in the United States to study feminism at the high school level. That's an unusual qualification of mine and we studied Germaine Greer and I never thought I would see the day when she would be ridiculing a female head of state on the basis of sartorial issues.

JULIE COLLINS: Me either.

BRIAN RITCHIE: I think itís inappropriate and I think it is just a way of marginalising female politicians and itís not acceptable. But, you know, what Terry said is equally true, that itís not name calling and these things need to slow down in public life.

TONY JONES: Okay, letís...

TERRY EDWARDS: It's all about losing respect for politicians and I think this is the key issue here, that itís symptomatic of people not respecting the people that do take the time to go into politics, present themselves to be leaders of the country, and I think if you look through the list that Randy read through, thereís a pretty broad range of people covered by those and it really is symptomatic of the respect in which people are holding our politicians and broken promises that Eric raised before are symptomatic and I'm not just blaming one side of politics for that. Both sides do it. They make promises and then they ignore them.

TONY JONES: Okay, weíre going to come to those issues in a moment. We are going to come to policy. We just have someone who jumped up with their question so go ahead...

AUDIENCE MEMBER: We have two major rivers in our two major cities in Tasmania. One has a state of the art museum, which I actually think we all love; the other has a proposed pulp mill, which has divided our communities. My question to the panel tonight is: How do we move on from our past conflicts and what is your vision for the future of Tasmania?

TONY JONES: Okay, what Iím going to do is take that as a comment, reserve it, because we are going to come to the issue later in the show. We donít want to get into the whole forestry issue and those issues right at this moment, because we are talking about other things, as we said before the show so weíre going to go to our next question, which actually is from Peter Stone.

WILKIE BROKEN PROMISES

PETER STONE: Hindsight is a wonderful thing. Given that the broken promises by Julia Gillard on pokie reforms, if you were able to wind back the clock knowing now what has occurred would you have supported the Labor Party to form government, Andrew Wilkie?

ANDREW WILKIE: A very good question and I have reflected on that quite a bit. The fact is though that after the election, Julia Gillard won the negotiation. She proved to be the much better negotiator, she read her interlocutors, I think, much more effectively and the sorts of commitments she could make, they certainly were more credible and I had more confidence they would be delivered. For example, she offered $340 million towards the rebuilding of the Royal Hobart Hospital, whereas Tony Abbott offered $1 billion towards...

ERIC ABETZ: Which you asked for, Andrew. Which you asked for.

TONY JONES: I mean did you ask for $1 billion?

ERIC ABETZ: You asked for $1 billion, Andrew, and Tony Abbott said yes and all of a sudden thatís a bad deal and $300 million is a lot, lot better.

ANDREW WILKIE: Thatís...

ERIC ABETZ: I donít get it, Andrew.

ANDREW WILKIE: Eric, that is to grossly oversimplify a complex negotiation. The fact is - no, no, the fact is...

ERIC ABETZ: No, Andrew. Andrew.

ANDREW WILKIE: No, Eric, the fact is that at the point that Tony offered me $1 billion, it was at the same time that the Treasury revealed that there was a $7 billion to $11 billion black hole in the Coalition's election promises and then over the top of that is the fact that itís not my job - or it wasnít my job as the member elect for Denison - to do public health care planning for Tasmania. It was my job to try and fund the State Government's plan which was, in fact, to rebuild on the current site. If I had accepted the $1 billion from Tony Abbott, we would have ended up getting nothing because it would have relied on the Tasmanian State Government contributing 0.6 of a billion dollars to finish the job and we now know the Tasmanian State Government doesnít have two bob to rub between its fingers, let alone $600 million.

TONY JONES: Okay, before we go to the rest of the panel - before we go to the rest of the panel, weíve got another question on this subject. Itís from Michael McKenna.

WILKIE - NO CONFIDENCE?

MICHAEL MCKENNA: Andrew, you are on record as believing the parliament should run its full term but that you would support motions of no confidence in the event of serious misconduct. Given that the Prime Minister has been found to have repeatedly lied to the Australian people and didnít honour her arrangements with you, why haven't you initiated a motion of no confidence in the government of Prime Minister Gillard?

ANDREW WILKIE: Yes, I do think that the government is now guilty of misconduct and I think the broken promise with me was a very, very serious matter. I do not think that that alone was enough to change the government of the land. If a motion of no confidence does come before the House between now and the next - or the expected election in 18 months, Iíll have to weigh that up on its merits but the point is, though, that I canít bring down the government. I donít support the government now. The three crossbenchers that support the government are obviously Tony Windsor, Rob Oakeshott and Adam Bandt and until one of those three decides to support a motion of no confidence the government stands. Now, what happens at a point in the future if the government loses itís one seat majority? You now, Iíll have to look at that at the time but, I tell you what, the way I'm feeling right now it's once bitten twice shy and, you know, I think the Prime Minister wouldnít want to be needing to come to me and asking to sign another written agreement with me because I canít see how I could throw her a lifeline given the way she reneged on a written, signed contract with me.

ERIC ABETZ: But, Andrew, what will it take, Andrew, for you to make that step? Because you and I both know the Government knew in April of last year that they couldnít deliver your pokie reform but they didnít tell you until January of this year and during that time, what did they do? They got Peter Slipper into the speakership so they only told you after they got the insurance. It is that sort of manipulation of the parliamentary process that I would have thought might have actually warranted a no conflict motion.

TONY JONES: Letís hear from Julie Collins on this. It did seem vaguely suspicious that the whole thing came out once you had Peter Slipper sewn up.

JULIE COLLINS: The Government has been very serious about gambling reform and, you know, we understand the issues that problem gambling is causing in our community. What we couldnít do is get the type of legislation with Andrew through the parliament, so what we are proposing is similar legislation to what we were talking about that we know we can actually get through the parliament. You know I disagree with the inference in Michael's question that the Prime Minister has done this deliberately. I donít think that thatís true. I absolutely think that we want to deliver on problem gambling, that weíre very serious in terms of working with Andrew to get up the best legislation that we can but not just legislation. Weíre also doing a range of other things in terms of funding financial counsellors for problem gamblers because we know itís a serious issue and we know itís costing the community and we want to act as much as he does.

ANDREW WILKIE: Julie, look...

ERIC ABETZ: But, Julie, whatís the excuse? What is the excuse here...

TONY JONES: Well, hang on, can we let Andrew Wilkie, who is in negotiation currently continue that negotiation.

ERIC ABETZ: Of course. All right.

ANDREW WILKIE: Julie, with all due respect, what you just said is nonsense and I tell you why itís nonsense...

ERIC ABETZ: Hear, hear!

ANDREW WILKIE: The Prime Minister said that she didnít - she was not prepared to bring the legislation before the parliament because she was not confident she had the numbers to pass.

JULIE COLLINS: That's right.

ANDREW WILKIE: Well, for a start the Government never even lobbied Tony Crook, the WA National, which doesnít have - he doesnít have a single poker machine in his electorate. He has a passionate interest in poker machine reform and is a personal friend but yet no one from the government ever seriously lobbied him for his support. It makes me think the Government was actually more worried about getting the support than not getting the support because of the position it would have put the Prime Minister in with, for example. The New South Wales right. The government never wanted to get the numbers and now it doesn't appear to be wanting to progress even the watered down reforms that the Prime Minister announced on the 21st of January, because on the 21st of January the Prime Minister promised the Australian people that the Government's watered down package she didn't call it watered down package would be a system of machines with voluntary pre-commitment capable of going to mandatory pre-commitment at the flick of the switch but yet the Government's Bill does not include that and I am insisting that the Bill include that and if the Government continues to refuse to include...

JULIE COLLINS: Our advice is the Bill does do that.

ANDREW WILKIE: ...mandatory pre-commitment at the flick of the switch, the Prime Minister will have misled the Australian people again.

JULIE COLLINS: Our advice - our advice is that our legislation does actually do that and that at the end of the trial, should everything go according to plan and that it works as we hope that it does, that we will be in a position to then flick the switch. Now, weíre happy to continue discussion and working with you, Andrew, as we have been, because we are serious about addressing the issue.

ERIC ABETZ: But, Julie, what is the issue? Is it that you don't have the numbers in the parliament or is the issue this so called technical advice that you got in April last year that you couldnít do it? It is either a technicality or the numbers and...

TONY JONES: Letís get this straight, youíre not backing this in the Senate, are you?

ERIC ABETZ: No, absolutely not.

TONY JONES: So they canít get it through the senate, is that right?

JULIE COLLINS: Exactly, so we donít have that support.

ERIC ABETZ: Or the Greens would support a Labor legislation, one would assume, in the Senate. This is an issue, in fact, where itís stuck in the House of Representatives.

JULIE COLLINS: Thatís right.

ERIC ABETZ: The Labor Party has to get its excuse right.

JULIE COLLINS: The Liberal Party is not supporting it there.

ERIC ABETZ: Is it that they canít get it through the House of Representatives or was it that so called technical advice that you got in April but hid from Andrew Wilkie until January this year?

TONY JONES: Okay, I just want to hear from the rest of the panel on this because the accusation is the government was hiding its real reasons for getting rid of this or for delaying or putting off this reform. Natasha Cica?

NATASHA CICA: Well, it goes back to those larger questions of trust to which I alluded earlier and, you know, I can tell - watching Brian's face sitting here on the panel, I can tell heís busting to run for the seat of Denison at the next election. Not. Because why would you? I mean why would you insert yourself in what to many, many people looks like nitpicking, not necessarily in good faith, when people could, on a whole range of issues - and I wonít confine it to the pokies issues but a whole range of issues. In Tasmania education very important for us, arguably forestry, but I know weíll come to that. Why can't we all just give a little more and move together - forwards together just a little more?

JULIE COLLINS: Thatís what weíre trying to do.

TONY JONES: Brian, can I get you to reflect on this whole poker machine reform issue and where itís gone. It seems to have gone - well, itís been put on a sort of permanent delay at the moment.

BRIAN RITCHIE: I donít think itís an issue that rises to the level of controversy that youíd want to bring a government down over it, if thatís whatís being suggested. So you just have to readdress it and try to sort it out, as Julie was mentioning.

JULIE COLLINS: Thatís right.

TONY JONES: Terry Edwards?

TERRY EDWARDS: For me, as it was a moment ago, Tony, this is a matter of trust. Andrew Wilkie negotiated with the Prime Minister and reached an agreement with her, he told us just a moment ago that the Prime Minister was a more competent negotiator and brought a better package to the table, in his estimation, but whatís it delivered? This is the question. Iím not calling anyone liars. That's not the way I want to do business. What I am saying is that there were commitments made and people will have to judge for themselves whether or not they have been delivered. Too often our politicians tell us theyíre going to do X or Y and I too am not going to confine this to pokies but we are promised things in election campaigns and at other times and they are not delivered. Now, I understand the way a parliament operates and the need for compromises between parties and minor parties and independents but, at the end of the day, if you can't deliver it, don't promise it and I think thatís the key because people are losing respect for politicians and that is because consistently they see promises made, like Iíll never introduce a carbon tax, for example, but then you get one all of a sudden, and you say, gee, where did that come from? And itís because of a compromise deal that was reached with another minor party to get other things in their agenda up. Now, people are losing respect for that in the community as a whole and politicians are starting to be talked about as budgie smugglers or having big bottoms or whatever it might be because we are losing respect for our politicians.

JULIE COLLINS: Yes. I do think that politicians want to deliver on what they say, Terry. I think that most politicians enter politics for the right reasons, because they want to actually serve the local community. They want to represent people. They want to deliver fairness to Australia and thatís why they put themselves up. When you get a government or a parliament where you don't have all the numbers and you have a balance of power, you have to negotiate. Andrew was saying that the Prime Minister is a good negotiator. The Prime Minister has said that we don't think we can get this legislation through parliament, so we have compromised, on legislation to try and work with Andrew to try and get this legislation through. We are still determined to try and get this legislation through the parliament. Weíve put through as a minority government more than 300 pieces of legislation. It is not easy every day to negotiate pieces of legislation but it is not new just to our government. John Howard had to negotiate legislation, such as the GST, through the Senate with the Democrats. Some people might wish he never had but there are a whole range of governments that have gone on over time having to negotiate and change their purist policy position to a position of compromise to try and get it through the parliament. Thatís the reality. The parliament is elected by the people of Australia. We have to deal with the representatives in the parliament because theyíre the ones the people elected and thatís our job.

ERIC ABETZ: But, Julie, thereís a big difference going to an election promising a GST and then having to negotiate it through the parliament, than going to an election promising no carbon tax and then doing a deal with the Greens and getting it through in complete contradistinction to what was promised to the Australian people.

TONY JONES: Okay, Iím going to draw a line under this because we also made a promise and that promise was we would get to the forestry issue. This is Q&A. Weíre live from Hobart. Our next question tonight comes from Gail Sorbian.

FORESTRY

GAIL SORBIAN: My question is directed to Terry Edwards first. What, in your opinion, will happen to the forest industry in Tasmania if the campaign by radical groups successfully convince overseas markets not to purchase wood products from here? There is a high demand for wood products in Australia and people will be forced to obtain these from other countries with poor or no forest management. What plans would you like to implement to create a balanced industry?

TONY JONES: Okay, the bottom line of that question was, ďWhat, in your opinion, will happen to the forest industry in Tasmania if the campaign by radical groups is successful - environmental groups?Ē Weíll start with you, Terry Edwards, briefly.

TERRY EDWARDS: It is hard to be brief on this, Tony.

TONY JONES: I know but we havenít got much time.

TERRY EDWARDS: Okay. If the overseas campaigns continue and are successful, as they have been in part to day, the forest industry in Tasmania will eventually implode. The industry is an integrated number of different components that make up the whole. If you take any one of those components out you undermine the viability of the whole. We have largely lost the woodchip export industry and, again, that was on the back of campaigning in our overseas markets by environmental groups. We have seen Ta Ann, who was attracted down here to Tasmania by the Tasmanian and Commonwealth Governments, who were asked to invest here and they too have been subject to a quite dishonourable campaign in Japan by extremist environmental groups. It has cost them two contracts to date and today cost 49 Tasmanians today their jobs. They lost their jobs today as a direct result of that campaign. If we use the capacity to use the lower grade timber thatís taken off a coop thatís being harvested to produce saw logs, we will lose the industry as a whole. If we lose the industry as a whole, that is 5,000 jobs, that is $750 million each and every year in generated wealth in this state that we cannot afford to lose.

ANDREW WILKIE: Terry, you can't blame Terry, I agree with you that we need to get our industry back on a sustainable footing but you canít blame a handful of activists overseas for the fact that the industry is on its knees at the moment. There are many reasons why the industry...

JULIE COLLINS: Thatís true but you can say to people...

ANDREW WILKIE: Yeah, but hang on...

JULIE COLLINS: ...that are going overseas that theyíre actually destroying jobs in Tasmania and the Government has said that we shouldnít have people going overseas trashing the brand of Tasmania because Tasmanians have got a lot to be proud of on a whole range of issues and I donít think it helps the Tasmanian economy to have anybody overseas saying things about Tasmania like that.

TONY JONES: Okay, just before we hear from the rest of the panel, weíve got a question in the audience from a very different perspective. Itís from Irena Luckus. Irena, letís get a microphone to you. Go ahead.

FORESTS

IRENA LUKUS: A willingness to dismiss reports based on scientific investigation has led me to believe that we are entering a new dark age. Self interested groups, like Forestry Tasmania, have been plundering our rich old growth forests at unsustainable levels. Politicians who, with their party political ego babble, their spin, their three word slogans and stints...

ERIC ABETZ: Thatíd be the Greens.

IRENA LUKUS: ...promote this sort of banality and they are supported by a vacancy in our media. When will Forestry Tasmania and the politicians cut the crap and when will the media do the same?

TONY JONES: Okay, letís hear from the rest of our panel. Natasha Cica first of all.

NATASHA CICA: Iím really worried by some of the tone of some of the comments around the question - that last question, because there were some people muttering rude comments, hissing, basically saying, ďSit down.Ē You are entitled to express that opinion. So is Terry. So is the other person who asked the question. What really worries me about the toxic nature of the forestry debate in Tasmania at the moment and itís not the first time itís been toxic is the way that we Tasmanians are turning against each other. I am worried for our society - for our civil society - and for the way that we are speaking to and not listening to each other. So the kind of language that Julie used is more of the kind of language I would like to hear in this debate. I donít think words like ďterroristsĒ for example, which has popped up in the public discourse in the last week or so, are in any way helpful to getting us all moving forwards together. I do not think the personal attacks on Professor Jonathan West in relation to the executive summary of his report were in any way defensible. I found them to be completely unacceptable in a society that considers itself grown up.

TONY JONES: Okay, Natasha...

NATASHA CICA: We need to get better at having a grown up conversation about this.

JULIE COLLINS: I agree.

NATASHA CICA: Nobody is going to be happy with the outcome, completely happy, but more of us can be more happy and we need to think of ourselves as a community.

TONY JONES: Iím just going to go back to Terry Edwards because you did make the terrorist comment. It is a problem, isnít it, when you have a professor who produces a report, the report is totally rejected by the industry, not necessarily by the community.

TERRY EDWARDS: Well, the industry hasn't rejected the report. A part of the industry has made some comments about the accuracy or otherwise of the Professor West's report and they quite rightly called into question a number of the facts in this his report. They are inaccurate. They are directly inconsistent with the scientific technical information that was included in the reports that he himself presented to the Tasmanian and Commonwealth governments. He was wrong in fact and that can be proved. I donít have to go through that now but that is a fact. Now, I have not come out and criticised Professor West for the comments he made. I think they were ill-advised and I think some of the comments and the so called facts that he relied on were inaccurate. Now, back to the question that Irena asked about refusing to accept scientific facts. No one has rejected the scientific reports that were produced to the two governments by Professor West. The only criticism has been drawn about his decision to break with what he told everyone he was going to do. He said, a number of times, he would not produce any recommendations or make any commentary about the way forward from here. What he would simply do is deliver five scientific reports. He did that. Now, the parties to the negotiations process are going through two and a half thousand pages of quite complex scientific information and weíre trying to understand it and then weíll try and do what Natasha says. Weíll try and sit down but from my organisation's point of view we won't do that while weíve got a gun being held at our head by people who are destroying my members' markets in overseas country. Soon as that stops the negotiation process that Natasha wants and the sensible mature conversation can resume. It has actually been quite mature for two years.

BRIAN RITCHIE: Terry, I heard you on the radio last week and you said you would not negotiate with the environmental groups unless they stopped campaigning against you.

TERRY EDWARDS: That's right.

BRIAN RITCHIE: It seems to me that in a democracy, protest, free speech, these things are treasured.

TERRY EDWARDS: Yep.

BRIAN RITCHIE: And I find it problematic for you to refuse to engage in any conversation.

TONY JONES: Before you respond to that, weíve got a video from a protestor perched at the top of a tree in southern Tasmania. Letís hear from her.

MIRANDA GIBSON: My name is Miranda Gibson and Iím currently 60 metres at the top of an old growth tree in southern Tasmania. I have been at the top of the tree for 110 days watching over these high conservation value forests that were due to be protected in August last year yet they are still subject to logging.

TONY JONES: Now, her name is Miranda Gibson, Terry Edwards, and she actually went on to offer you a deal. She said sheíd be prepared or there group would be prepared to stop logging in - or to stop protesting logging in the area if...

TERRY EDWARDS: Theyíve already stopped the logging.

TONY JONES: Thatís obviously correct. If you agree to stop logging in the 572,000 hectares of identified high conservation value forests, theyíll call off their market boycott. That's what she went on to say. Would you be prepared to do that in order to sit down and have that negotiation?

TERRY EDWARDS: Look, Iím not going to give a definitive answer to that because that was put to us formally today and I need to go through a process within my membership to come up with a complete answer to the proposal thatís been put but I think if I go to the question Brian put to me about the...

TONY JONES: Just...

TERRY EDWARDS: I will come back to it.

TONY JONES: Just put that on pause for a second. I mean, are you suggesting you would - youíve heard about this today but you would be prepared to consider it?

TERRY EDWARDS: Oh, of course we will consider it if itís realistic and if it will give us the opportunity and the space to produce an outcome. But we have to evaluate the various components. I mean this was an integrated package that was put to us today. Itís wasnít just we are going to stop and you come back into the talks. There was a lot more to it than that, including the fact that the area that had to be vacated for this to occur just suddenly grew from 430,000 hectares to 572,000 hectares since the campaign started. Now, I donít know it doesn't seem to me to be a very good peace offering when you up the ante on your claim. Now, if I can go back to Brian's point, because I think it is important. I did an interview on the 7:30 Report last week and itís largely from that that the commentary on the radio came. And in that I was asked a question about what we wanted to achieve by way of making sure that any outcome from this process was durable and I talked about a range of different things, including a legislative package to stop illegal protests. I also talked about making environmental organisations subjected to exactly the same laws that apply to everyone else in the community, things like the Trade Practices Act, the Australian Competition and Consumer Act, truth in advertising laws, all of which environmental organisations are exempt from and exploit on a daily basis in a completely unfair way that creates a non level playing field that we are required to play on but we are kicking uphill every single quarter and it is becoming quite difficult. Now, we can't fight back against the campaigns. Thereís a classic case of defamation thatís been identified by our barrister that weíre not able to run because the Tasmanian Government changed the law so that a corporation cannot take action against an individual or a not for profit organisation under our defamation laws.

TONY JONES: All right, letís pause for a minute. I want to hear from Andrew Wilkie on this. Is there a way of lowering the temperature on this dispute so you can actually get a resolution?

ANDREW WILKIE: Well, Tony, there has to be because the status quo is not an option. We cannot continue the way we are doing it because at the moment some of the most precious forests on the planet are being logged and on the other side of the barricades we have forestry workers who are losing their jobs, who are worried about their jobs, who are worried about the jobs that will be there for their children. The status quo is not an option but Iím concerned by the direction of this conversation because it seems to be all about activists in foreign markets and that they are solely responsible for the fact that the industry is on its knees. The industry is on its knees for many reasons, including the high Australian dollar, including the fact that woodchips out of South America and Asia are so much cheaper for foreign consumers.

TONY JONES: Sorry, we can't have people calling out from the audience. If you want to put your hand up we might try and get a microphone to you, wherever you are.

ANDREW WILKIE: The fact that Professor West has revealed that weíve been over-logging our forests now for decades, the fact that weíve been writing contracts which we can't supply, even from the current forestry areas, there are countless reasons why the industry is on its knees and we all need to get around a table and sort it out and we all have to be prepared to give a bit.

TERRY EDWARDS: Well, they are the inaccuracies Iím talking about.

TONY JONES: All right. Hold on. Weíre just going to go to this person with their hand up, up there.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: I just want to say, I don't know how you can sit there and make comments about forests in Tasmania being the most precious in the world and claim to have a global view on these things. If you opened your eyes up to whatís happening elsewhere, even in our own region - you donít even have to travel very far - all the people sitting in trees in Tasmania flew over east Malaysia, flew over Borneo and Kalimantan, don't they care about the trees and the species that are disappearing there all the time? Do you think theyíve got the same sort of legislation weíve got here or the same sort of rigorous controls or the same sort of media scrutiny or the number of politicians, the number of journalists weíve got in Tasmania? Whatís happening there is far worse than here.

TONY JONES: Okay, weíre running out of time, so weíve got to come to an end.

ERIC ABETZ: If I may, Tony.

TONY JONES: Eric Abetz.

ERIC ABETZ: Brian talked about democracy. When youíve got 80% of the people voting for parties that committed themselves to the Regional Forest Agreement and the Community Forest Agreement before the last Federal and State elections, one has to ask: Why is it that the wishes of 80% of people cannot be actually upheld and implemented. In relation to the review, Jonathan West, a former director of the Wilderness Society, who verified...

ANDREW WILKIE: Hang on. Hang on. Thirty years - Eric, 30 years ago...

ERIC ABETZ: Yeah, who verified some of these findings...

ANDREW WILKIE: Eric, 30 years ago I was in the Liberal Party.

ERIC ABETZ: The fellow - the fellow - the fellow - the fellow that allegedly verified things for Professor West was over in Japan with Peg Putt crawling our forest markets. Do you call that an independent assessment? I donít think so. People were specifically chosen by the Government for a certain outcome (indistinct)...

TONY JONES: Okay. All right. Iím going to interrupt you there because weíre fast running out of time but since youíre calling into question the authority of a professor, our last question is from Stephen Wilkinson. Heís calling politicians into questions.

POLITICIANS - NO EXPERIENCE

STEPHEN WILKINSON: Thanks, Tony. Iím a surgeon and daily people entrust me with their lives, mostly successfully thank goodness. To qualify for this trust took 15 years of training and sacrifice and getting a pretty broad life experience yet to become a politician who can make decisions affecting thousands of people requires no qualifications at all. Many are lawyers with narrow life experience or career politicians who have never had much real life responsibility. Should Australia require a minimum level of training and skills to be demonstrated before you can enter politics?

TONY JONES: Okay. Okay. All right. Obviously a very popular question. We havenít got a lot of time but we will go to our politicians first. Julie Collins, you might want to start with your life experience.

JULIE COLLINS: Well, I think parliament should be representative of the people and it should be representative of all sectors of the community and all people within Australia and I think itís important to have diversity in the parliament, so I think we should have politicians from all backgrounds and I think that if you set a minimum standard that you might not get that.

TONY JONES: Eric Abetz, I...

ERIC ABETZ: Iíll be completely bipartisan here on that basis. Eric Reiss would never have become Premier of Tasmania.

JULIE COLLINS: Paul Keating.

ERIC ABETZ: Paul Keating would never have become Prime Minister of Australia. I have my views on the latter but, having said that, I believe - I believe the best test is, in fact, the ballot box and not some degree. Would you need a degree or would you have to have been a part-time cab driver? Iíd score on that one but possibly not with my law degree. Thanks goodness Iíve got both so hopefully I can justify my existence.

TONY JONES: And Eric Abetz has volunteered to drive us all home tonight, youíll be pleased to hear. Let's hear from Andrew Wilkie.

ANDREW WILKIE: There is a shortage of leadership in this country and in particular in this State. There is an almost complete absence of the sort of the larger than life inspiring characters that pick you up and take you along and that youíd follow to war. The sort of the - you know, the Menzies, the Whitlams, the Hawkes, the Keatings, to some the Howards. There is an absence of those larger than life figures that inspire you and you really - you know, they give you optimism and you want to follow them and one of the reasons for that is we now have a political ruling class in this country. Uni students become staffers sorry to my staffers in the audience. Staffers become - you know they get pre-selected in safe seats and they become politicians for life and itís a career for them and what I want to see, I want to see plumbers and builders and train drivers. I want to see people who can read a balance sheet, who have hired people, fired people, who have had to worry about where their dinner is coming from. Theyíve had to worry about, you know, their kids' welfare and so on. Theyíre the sort of people we need. We need to have a more of a transient population of politicians. People who come in for a term of two and then go and get on with their life.

BRIAN RITCHIE: Yes, we have had at least one. I think more honest people and straightforward people, people with charisma, people who can lead, people who have something to say and people who are not afraid to tell the truth. Frequently I hear politicians speaking, and I'm sure most people have experienced this, and they just don't believe that the person means what theyíre saying. Party politics takes over. People are following the party line instead of their own individual beliefs. We need more individuality in the political class here and probably that would be developed if we had more people coming from normal backgrounds getting into politics.

TONY JONES: Okay, that is all we have time for. Please thank our panel: Natasha Cica, Eric Abetz, Brian Ritchie, Andrew Wilkie, Julie Collins and Terry Edwards. Thanks to too to our Tasmanian audience for some great questions and great comments tonight. Give yourselves a round of applause while weíre at it and, Brian, that is your cue. Okay, next week a very special Q&A when Cardinal George Pell goes head to head with atheist Richard Dawkins. The meaning of life and the existence of God have been debated for millennia and on Easter Monday Australia's most senior Catholic churchman will debate the worldís most militant atheist so join us then for a Q&A where you can ask the very big questions and expect some big answers. Itís Dawkins versus Pell on Q&A next Monday at 9.35. Weíll, weíll finish tonight with Brian, Tim and Don, the Jack Jumper Trio, playing us out with the Oyster Stomp. Goodnight.

Brian Ritchie is Curator of MONA FOMA (Museum of Old and New Art Festival of Music and Art) in Hobart, Tasmania.

Brian is founding bassist/multi-instrumentalist of the seminal American alternative group Violent Femmes. He moved to Australia in 2006 and formed The Break, a modern Australian surf band, with three members of Midnight Oil.

Brian is also a licensed master of shakuhachi (Japanese bamboo flute).

Extra-musically he operates an Asian teahouse named Chado-the Way of Tea.

Natasha Cica is an educator, change agent and public-interest commentator. Currently she is the Director of the Inglis Clark Centre for Civil Society at the University of Tasmania, where her brief is to advance the universityís community engagement and thought leadership agenda. This connects with the wider aim of improving the economic, cultural and social vibrancy of Tasmania in the 21st century.

In 2012 Natasha is the recipient of a prestigious Sidney Myer Creative Fellowship. Just twelve Australians were selected for these fellowships from over three hundred nominations, with regard to two criteria - outstanding talent and exceptional courage.

Natasha has worked as a lawyer and at public interest think tanks in Europe and Australia. She was also a research specialist in the Department of the Parliamentary Library in Canberra, including secondments to the staff of Federal parliamentarians Petro Georgiou (Liberal) and Duncan Kerr (Labor). Natasha has provided analysis and comment on Australian politics and culture for a wide range of publications and broadcasters. Her book Pedder Dreaming: Olegas Truchanas and A Lost Tasmanian Wilderness was published by the University of Queensland Press in 2011, and officially launched by the Governor-General of Australia.

Born and raised in Tasmania, Natasha mainly lives on Bruny Island near Hobart.

Julie Collins was born in Tasmania in 1971. Over the past twenty years she has worked to improve the lives of Tasmanian families in a variety of political and public sector roles, including as an adviser to former Tasmanian Premier Jim Bacon. She was also State Secretary of the Tasmanian Labor Party from 2006 to 2007 and has a certificate in business administration.

Julie was elected to the House of Representatives on 25 November 2007 as the member for Franklin.

In 2011 she was promoted to the Ministry as Minister for Community Services, Indigenous Employment and Economic Development, and Status of Women.

She is married and is the mother of three young children.Like most working mothers, Julie has taken an active interest in her children's educational and sporting activities. She has a first-hand understanding of the difficulties many families face with interest rates, child care costs, petrol and grocery prices and balancing work and family responsibilities.

Eric Abetz is a Liberal Senator from Tasmania, Opposition Senate leader and shadow minister for employment and workplace relations.

Renowned as a highly committed warrior for the Liberal Right, a reputation he won many years ago as a student politician, he is a ceaseless critic of progressive causes.

Eric was born in Germany in 1958, the youngest of six children. The family migrated to Australia in 1961. Eric has degrees in arts and law from the University of Tasmania and says his political ideology was sparked during his university days when he was told exam results would not be credited unless he joined the Australian Union of Students. He became politically active and in 1980 was the only Tasmanian to become national president of the Australian Liberal Studentsí Federation.

Eric became a Senator in 1994, filling a casual vacancy, after a career as a barrister and solicitor. He served as Special Minister of State from 2001-06 during the Howard government and was then Minister for Forestry until the government fell in 2007.

He is a strong advocate for curbs on union power, non-compulsory voting and a range of Christian conservative causes.

Terry Edwards is the Chief Executive of the Forest Industries Association of Tasmania, a position he has held since January 2002.

In this role Terry has responsibility for the general management of the FIAT, including its financial and human resources. The FIAT provides a range of direct and indirect services to its industry members who are involved in the growing, managing, harvesting and processing of Tasmaniaís forest products.

A principal role played by the FIAT is in the areas of public relations and lobbying, roles engaged in directly by Terry as CEO.

Prior to joining the FIAT Terry was the Deputy CEO of the Tasmanian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, with primary responsibility for industrial relations services and export facilitation. Terry was employed at the TCCI for 20 years.

In the 2010 Federal Election Andrew Wilkie was elected as the Independent Member for Denison, taking the previously safe seat from the ALP in one of the biggest swings seen in the country. Afterwards he provided certainty of supply and confidence to the ALP, making him one of the four cross-benchers giving government to Labor.

Pokies reform was one of the key issues he took to his negotiations with Julia Gillard and she agreed to introduce a mandatory pre-commitment scheme on poker machines in 2014. Andrew withdrew his support for the Government in January 2012 when the Prime Minister walked away from her written commitment to introduce the reform.

Andrewís qualifications include a Bachelor of Arts, Graduate Diploma of Management and Graduate Diploma of Defence Studies.

Andrew is 50 years old, married to Kate Burton and lives in Hobart, Tasmania. They have two young daughters, Olive and Rose.

Tom Switzer was senior adviser to former federal Liberal Party Leader Brendan Nelson until the leadership vote that saw Malcolm Turnbull take over in the top job. Before that he was opinion page editor for The Australian newspaper (2001-08), an editorial writer at the Australian Financial Review (1998-2001), and an assistant editor at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, DC (1995-98). He's also contributed articles to the Wall Street Journal, the London Spectator, the International Herald Tribune, the IPA Review and Quadrant magazine.

Tom was born in Dallas, Texas in 1971 and grew up in Sydney's northern suburbs. He went to primary and high school at St. Aloysius' College in North Sydney (1980-89) where he was an Australian schoolboy track and field champion. He graduated with honours in History from Sydney University in 1994.

In 2003 he ignited controversy in conservative circles when he opposed the Iraq war from the outset. And during his brief stint in the Opposition Leader's office this year, he provoked outrage among moderate Liberal MPs for his role in toughening up coalition policy on an emissions trading scheme. Former Liberal Prime Minister John Howard has praised him for giving "an authentic voice to the Right in the culture debates" while former Labor PM Paul Keating once described him as a "monkey" for representing "the jaundiced journalism that was part and parcel of the Howard years".

Tom lives with his wife Sarah in northern Sydney.

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